Skipper
by Coffin Liqueur
Summary: Pre-RE7. Two siblings take a li'l day trip out on the swamp. It winds up extended a bit. At least you don't need to worry about meeting the Big Bad Wolf on the way to Uncle's house when he's already riding with.
1. Lookout

Everything was green.

The water, the trees from sludgy bark to hanging, shimmering leaves; the light reflected off of them.

Everything but the pale blue of the wet, glassy eyes of the two kids in the boat.

The motor of it chugged and hummed in the back. The intermittent sputter kicked up water.

Lucas stood at the boat's nose, hauling through the water with a stick, while Zoe sat. A hand brought up to her mouth.

She blinked at him once. Cocked her head. Looked between him and the motor as he hitched a grunt on up into a whine.

"Hnnn - ah...!" He turned back to her. Grinning with big, parted white teeth. He flicked sweat and water droplets outta his hair - stringy bangs hung like moss. "Nahhh - 'ss not that far, I don't think...!" he all-but-laughed. He had a voice like a birdcall. "We'll get to Uncle's house, we're gonna play for two hours?" Another gasp and grunt as he doubled into another haul of the stick. Tossed his grinning up a storm back at her. " - and then we get back, and we tell Mom and Dad we were just doing what we always do. Just lookin' for fish."

"They're gonna see the boat's gone," Zoe said quietly.

"Hunh?"

"They're gonna know it was you."

She held her look up to him blank. Mouth a little line behind her fingers. Eyes round. Wide. _Please play attention._

...And then a tiny, tiny pull to a knit.

Effort to look stern.

It worked. The corners of his mouth started to sag, on into the same darn look that he gives Daddy on those tellings-off. She's made an effort to learn this; she takes this frown as a good thing. A little low warm burn of pride picks up in her chest. _Just like Daddy._

"And he's gonna smack you," she said. "He's gonna smack you a whole _lot_."

This was the wrong move.

Lucas narrowed his eyes, puffing up a little in the shoulders, and Zoe let a dry wind begin to blow the head off that internal burn. Lucas didn't listen to anything when he got mad. Mind you, she wasn't expecting him to listen anyway. Not really-really. Not change his mind.

Just be careful, maybe. In some nebulous way, turn this from "trouble" to "something fine".

He was gonna _want_ to get in trouble, now.

"Uncle's not gonna let him," he said, with a little toss of his head. He didn't believe that; Uncle was gonna stay down in his shack when they went home. There weren't nothing he could do. Lucas, however, didn't care.

Zoe gave him kitten eyes. She could look stern at him, and it'd work - reminding him that she knew stuff. Trying to make him sorry never did a thing. She was doing this for her own sake, as he turned on back to the front of the boat with one last stink-eye passed off as an _are you _stupid_, or something?_ Another growl as he shoved the stick.

"Why're you usin' a stick when we got a motor?" She cocked her head again.

He turned back at her with another flick. His eyes re-popped wide. "Uhn?"

"The motor makes the boat go." A half-turn back and a little wave where water kicked and splashed. "You don't gotta row it."

He squinted again. A twist-open of his lip on the side of a head-cocking.

Once again, _are you some kind of an idiot?_

His chin jerked up, once. "Nah. Nah, nah, nah, look at the motor." He lifted and indiscriminately waved a finger.

"What for?"

He stammered into a shrill repetition. She looked.

"You see the way it's turning? Around?"

She turned back to him. Stuck the side of her finger back against her mouth. His had begun a turn in the air. Like he was winding a shock of hair.

"That's the way it pushes the water. It pushes the water back so we can go forward. It don't go side-to-side. I'm steering."

"You really gotta steer that much?"

"Oh, my god, could you just - ?"

"I'm just curious, is all," she lied, rocking side to side on her hands. "Is it all the roots or something? The stuff you gotta steer around."

"Uhhh...!" He twisted to face forward again. One more deep, bending haul of the stick. Squinting into the swamp as if trying to identify the source of a smell. "...Gators, I guess?"

"You're not gonna just bump into one out of nowhere."

He swooped and chuffed into a "_whoa - !_" and a curve into a wild-eyed smile. "Nn, you never know, you know?" Threw that smile right on back her way. A sharp tilt. "Lots and lots of gators out here - Uncle sees one, like... ha ha, every day...!" One more hum of a grunt. " - Nnnh, he says they sneak up on you...!"

Affirmation.

He did, in fact, want trouble.

She had failed to make him not-want trouble, and he was now past the point of reasoning with.

She tucked her knees up to her chest. Squeezed them and rocks. Giving him a hard, hard glare.

To get the last word in, in a sense. For its own sake.

Meanwhile, he continued to row. Pardon, steer. Eyes re-brightened, holding a silent laugh as he scanned out over the water.

There was no telling if he even really did have any clue where they were going. He'd stolen the boat once before. Didn't get that far. Not because anyone had stopped him. She hadn't bothered, because she knew then, too, indeed, that he wouldn't get very far.

But because the motor broke. Another one that he made.

And this one, she noticed, was doing it again.

She slowed her rock to a still as its chugging and sputtering turned metallic. The boat slowed its roll right in kind.

"Oh, what the _hell_," he whined.

"We're gonna get stuck," she said, soft. In a trickle.

"Nah-ah, nah-ah, that's what we got the stick for." He heaves with a stab of the stick into unseen mud, growling and wincing through his teeth. Sucked in a breath. "_Now_ I'm - freakin' rowing!"

"This is a bad idea, Lucas."

"No, it ain't!" He shook his head like a dog shakes out its fur. "I can fix it up when we get to Uncle's. It's fine."

"You gonna row the whole way back if you can't?"

"Yeah?!" He shrugged with his whole free arm. "What're we supposed to do?"

He let that hang for a moment. Darts of pupils, half-focused, between her and the floor of the boat behind him. A wide cast out to the horizon before - a grimace.

A lean into rowing harder. Skinny body levering and twisting. She asks him if they can get her a stick, too, and he barks a no and keeps rowing on.

She didn't know if it'd been five minutes before he huffed and gave his brow one long, sticky wipe, and plopped down seated onto the bench across from her. Tucked-in pose mirrored and chin resting on his knees.

Zoe didn't do a thing but watch. Right there. No words, just let him rest, up until he pinched a look on her like she was a bug.

"I could take a turn," she said.

"Nuh-uh." Through thin-puffing air. Eyelids lowering and shutting. "Nuh-uh, you're _way_ too small. You can't row."

"You could lemme try."

"No way." With a jab of his head in. Eyes snapped open again, a turn of his head to indicate around her. "That was _my_ motor. This's my trip, this was _my_ idea, I get to steer and you get to not tip the boat."

"Why'd I have to come?" She frowned hard.

"Why I let you ever come along for anything, Zoe?" He met that with a pout. Eyes unfocusing on her as he picked up an absent rock, tucking his mouth down behind his knees. "It would have been boring rowing the whole way to Uncle's with no one to talk to."

"But you don't like it when I talk."

"Why'd you think that?!" There was a scrunch in his brow and a twist in his nose.

He genuinely did not understand.

This happened a lot.

A helpless marsh-bitter black feeling began to stretch and drip down from Zoe's ribs like goo from stalactites.

"You just been getting mad at me this whole time," she said. Turned the dial up a couple of notches, let her head sink lower between her shoulders, slipping her arms further down on her legs. "You're _always_ gettin' mad at me."

"That's just when you have to go be a stupid nag. I like it when you talk!" The little pin-pulls of a smile for show. The light flash of teeth in gray shadow. "I love it a lot when you're not trying to pretend you're Mama!" He cut himself off with a grunt - pushed himself up off one knee. Held a finger in the air, gave it a quick side-to-side waggle. "I know what I'm doing! I always do - if I don't know what I'm doing, I don't do it. I'm smart, remember?"

"So how far away's Uncle's shack?"

"Ehhhhh, I dunno." He picked the stick back up without so much as a shrug. Leaned forward into another stab in the mud. The boat sloshed back into motion. He giggled. "I'm not a freaking map. Can't be too much further, though! We were goin' fast with the motor, we're goin' the way we do when we go in the car!"

He assured her that he likes it when she talks, and to this, she decided to say nothing.

Not out of fear, but out of spite.

To pretend she's Mom and Dad was no tiny part of why she'd agreed to come. To be a collar, basically. She didn't even know if she liked Uncle. She wasn't sure even Dad did't. He was all loud, and intense, and wild. Stuff Dad, she figured, didn't trust - and so she followed suit.

All of this, incidentally, was part of why Lucas _did_, in fact, like Uncle.

And so she continued to sit put and look at him moodily as the bright green around 'em set to dripping and darkening blue, and he keeps on rowing.

Like not a thing on earth is wrong. She doesn't even know if he's noticed that it's dark.

When she broached it, it was with "where are we gonna sleep?"

It was a little mumble, but it jolted him. He snapped to twist to face her with a look as if she'd stabbed him in the back with a needle.

"Uhhh, Uncle's, if we gotta? Where did you think we was gonna sleep?"

"Home?" She let that twist. Tone and frown. She was tired - it was dropping into giving herself another allowance.

"Shut up."

The reaction she expected right down to the letter.

"I don't wanna sleep in the boat."

"We're not gonna sleep in the boat. We're going to Uncle's house!"

"You said it wasn't far away."

"It's not. There's no way ain't not gonna see it soon."

"It's getting real dark to see."

"Stop being such a freaking baby, Zoe, and let me keep rowing."

"I'm not being a baby." Raising her volume. Deliberately. Eyes widening with an urgent insistence. "I'm getting scared."

He scoffed. There his eyes went wide again. "Mmm, scared of what?"

"Us getting lost?"

"You're scared we're gonna get eaten by alligators?"

"You said there's a lot of them out here."

He laughed. Openly and gleefully. Her own widening of eyes fell at once into a press and a flatline. Once again, her attempt at reasoning had failed.

"That's 'cause there is! Good thing if any try to get us, then Uncle can fight 'em off!"

A change in tactics necessitated.

"You ever seen him fight one?" She rounded her eyes and pitched her voice to keening. It wasn't meant to be doubt.

He laughed again - and he _snorted_. "Ohh, yeah, yeah! The last time we went down there, there was a smaller one that came up while we were catching fish?" His grin split like a jack-o-lantern. "I said I wanted to see it so he baited it a little bit - then he fought it off with a gaff!"

"Did he kill it?"

"Nahhhhhh. I said I wanted him to, so I could keep it or something, but he said he didn't wanna mess with it too much."

"That all?"

"Nah, nah - he's got lots and lots of stories about the swamp!" He wheezed one laugh between his teeth. "You wanna hear 'em too then you're gonna need to hang out with him more when we get there. Not till after he shows me how to make a bomb, though, 'cause he promised!"

"Sure you don't wanna share?"

"You getting tired or something and asking for a bedtime story 'cause Mama's not here?"

"Nah-ah."

"'Cause you know we could stop, right?" His smile still held toothy.

"Maybe you're getting tired."

"What're you talking about? I always stay up all night. You know that."

"Yeah, but not rowing boats and stuff."

"I thought you said you didn't wanna sleep in the boat."

"I just asked if you could tell me one of Uncle's stories." She hardened her browline. One more stern jab. "Are you gonna do that or not?"

A sneezy sound. "What're you gonna do if I do?"

She paused. Licked her lip, considering, weighing and picking a bargaining point. "I'm gonna not tell Mom and Dad you stole me to live with you at Uncle's house instead."

She smiled - it felt clever - and he, meanwhile, scoffed. Let out a "wow" in a yowly curve like a sick cat.

Still smiling. Hitting his eyes with everything.

And she stuck to smiling, too. Loosened a little. Prepped herself for what's coming.

And there an inarticulate expectation came fulfilled.

"So here's one!" he said. "This one, Uncle told me happened in winter, like, ten years ago or something, on one of the really really bad rainy nights!" A cackle and indistinct motion of his hand - a shadow puppet's beak opening and shutting. "But-but, um, I warn ya, Zo - he told me this one when I asked for a scary story. And it's a _real_ freaky one..."


	2. Swamp Ghosts

"So!" said Lucas. He sniffed. Wiped his nose once on the back of his hand.

"Uncle said - this one happened, one night, he said it was when the rain was comin' down when he was out hunting. He had to take his boat back with this huge deer on it, you know?" A blank on his face as he held his hands apart. _This big._ "And everything was all covered up under a tarp, but he wasn't - he was just sitting there on it, with the rain so heavy and all in his eyes and stuff so he basically couldn't see anything."

Lifted a hand. Flapped it in the air with some kinda intent urgency. Swung it out through the air. "But then he _did_ see something! It was something like, uhh... a heron. Just a heron, just - standing there. Right by the water. Right there!"

He pointed out starboard side someplace. Zoe scooted and careened to look out into the dark swamp.

Not a dang thing there.

She withered a little, looked back at him with a little bitty frown. She didn't know if she'd been pranked on purpose.

Knew how Lucas would take it. Sure enough, he breathed a li'l laugh, wiggled side-to-side on his feet.

"Made ya look.

But uhh - anyway, agg - !" He strained and bit into another shove of the rowing stick. " - And you - and you wouldn't think that's weird, right? But that's 'cause you don't think about how it was dark, and it was all rainy and hard to see crap. It was big, and like, it was glowing."

"And that's cause it _was_ glowing!" Downright gasped. He shook his head almost like she'd called him a liar. "It wasn't a heron; it was this - kinda bird-shaped space in the trees or the roots or the plants or somethin', and there was this - weird, weird light behind it! Kinda like a flashlight light. And so he says - 'evening!'" He waves his arm. "Or something like that."

"Was it one of those things that Mama talks about? One o' the light ghosts?"

She couldn't quite remember the name. Either way, it was a mild kinda preemptive dismissal. She knew that monsters weren't real. Nonetheless, Lucas ignored her. Not a single sign he'd even heard.

" - And then the light suddenly goes out." He clapped the side of his arm, gave a nod. "Just like that! He thinks that's kinda weird, but okay, whatever, he just keeps going. 'Cause _nothing_ stops Uncle Joe.

"So he keeps the boat going, but then sometime..."

He turned to her again. Stared at her way too long until she scowled, lightly, again. No tiredness, just a wordless bid to stop teasing. He narrowed his eyes, jerked in at her, held his arm forward. Popped his eyes and jerked a nod up. She took a quick take back over her shoulder at the water behind the boat. Nothing there, but whatever, she'd humor him.

Worked, apparently. He smiled once wild toothy, and then nodded hard. Continued, " - the motor goes out! So he turns around to start revving it back up, and then there's that light again! He thinks, 'oh - so I guess it might be someone else's boat!' And maybe they didn't hear him try to say hi over the rain, or something. It's not a real big deal.

"So he gets back to going home. He parks the boat and he wraps up the deer or whatever it was, and he picks it up, and it's all like everything's normal, see - ?!" He paused mid-row. Performed an odd sort of stiff "hug" in the air, lookin' like a pelican. " - held up and stuff. But then while he's turning around to get to the door, then there's the light again! And it's basically closer. I don't know how he could tell, but it's closer. And not a lot of people go that far out for that long and stay there, right? Or it wouldn't have been the spot where he put his house! And he's kinda ticked off, but he thinks maybe they're following him for directions or something because the rain's so bad.

"And he's not goin' in until he knows what their deal is. So he stands there, and he yells out something about the rain. Real loud. Of course, maybe they could hear him. Uncle's loud and stuff! But if _they_ said anything back, _he_ couldn't hear 'em, so he stands there for a little bit waiting for the light to get closer, but it doesn't - it just starts moving away and off to the side, to go kind of behind the trees."

"When does it get scary?" Zoe asked. Stiff as a thin and creaking board.

He scoffed once again. A "pffhuhhh - " and a crinkle in his nose.

Then he bent that into a smile with a squint. _Game on._ "What, how does that not creep you out? Some guy following Uncle around in the swamp where only he goes? Wouldn't that creep _you_ out?"

"Was it really a monster?"

She knew not to call his bluff. He wasn't above changing the story to put something real in it.

For a sec, though, he weren't even smiling. "You _want_ me to tell you about the really scary stuff?" he said. "Well, all right.

"So there's the light behind the trees, and there he is, watching it move around until it goes away." He'd begun speaking a little quicker. He waggled a finger around like he was pointin' out a gnat. "'Cause it actually does this time - it was really bright before, but he can't see it through the rain no more. He doesn't know if it's hiding or anything or if it was just a coincidence. But still, he wants to get a look at what's goin' on! And he doesn't wanna get rid of the deer, in case a gator or something grabs it while he's gone. He goes walking along the shore in the way it went, with a - big freakin' ol' deer still right over his shoulder."

He stomped in front of her in a _lunge_, and she jumped back with a squeak. Hands drawn up. His eyes went all big and pale again. Breathing getting all bigger and swoopier.

"And then something goes and _pulls it away from behind." _He brought his rowing hand in a little to make mimed movement in the air like breaking a wishbone. Pushed back, stood taller again, free arm out, hand lightly waving in the air. "And he pulls back and turns around! He went out hunting in the rain for it and it was gonna be a big dinner! But it gets pulled right outta the tarp and there's a trail of blood and guts and everything going on back around the house - and he runs after it and he keeps on going, and then he sees there's a leg. Not like a person's leg, but a deer's leg. And then there's another one. He keeps on walking and then he sees it through the trees again. There's the light.

"And there's guts _everywhere_." He leaned forward with that intense ol' hush. Palms down, swept 'em apart. Laying a floor.

"He's mad and freaked out and all but he goes back in. He's got all his weapons and stuff in there. If it's some super strong guy with a light or some sorta big freaky animal with a light on its head, like an anglerfish, it's fine! He can blow it up or something for stealin' his deer.

Somethin' tugged in Zoe's head. She blinked. Leaned over the edge of the boat to scan the water for lights and wiggly fins and big white eyes. _Did_ anglerfish live in the swamp...?

Jumped back to attention once Lucas kept talking. He was shaking his head with his eyebrows lifting, mouth open way too much.

"Nothing ever turns up, though. Not again for the whole freaking night.

"There's just these noises as it starts getting darker. Like the birds are getting upset."

"The light ever show up again?"

"Nah-ah." He shook his head. One of his little growly whines to it. Sure enough, there it was - a scrunching to his nose and a fixed flare to his nostrils. Lookin' at her like she was a bug that bit him. "Why, are you judging me? Uncle told me that one 'cause I asked for a scary story, what's wrong with it?"

"That actually scare you? For real?"

"I'm not scared of anything." His eyes went so wide she could see his whites in the dark. Muscles in his face stretching and pulling around his smile. "Scary stories are cool!" A wipe of his wrist against his nose and one sharp sniff. "I bet you're gonna be really scared if we gotta sleep out here, though! With all the deer-stealing monsters."

"There's no such thing as monsters."

"What about weird people in the woods who steal deer? What if it was a murderer or something?"

"You said Uncle saw a light. You're not gonna be able to freak me out over the story because you don't have a flashlight."

"How you know I don't?"

Showin' his hand.

"'Cause we were supposed to be at Uncle's already. You didn't know we were gonna be out until nighttime."

He deflated. A quiet little noise behind it like he was a ripped balloon.

Meanwhile, the bottom of the boat scraped over a bed of roots. The stick clacked against the trunk. Lucas's eyes fell heavy.

And he sat again. Broke out an "mmh".

She allowed herself another moment. Her brows knit up and roofing. Her eyes all the dewier.

Bad vibes, she could tell. And was half-sorry.

He saw it and scowled. "I just wanna rest for a sec," he said. "My arms are tired."

She wasn't gonna challenge that. He didn't care that she was worried they're never gonna make it back home. He just didn't worry.

'Bout anything but one thing.

"You're no fun," he said.

"I'm just tired, too," she lied, half checked-out.

"No, you ain't." A little of a snip to it. He shuffled his knees apart, rested his elbow on one, grabbed his chin and leaned forward. Looked out into the swamp. An all-performance I don't wanna talk to you anymore. "_I_ been doing all the work, here."

"You didn't want me to row."

"Shhhhhut the hell up," he said, all sighing, hand rubbing up his face, squeezing at his forehead.

"You're not supposed to say 'hell'." It was a reflexive sort of parry move - someone aims a bunch, and you block.

"_You_ said it." Hand down, half-yellin'. Eyes lamps on her again. "You want me to tell Daddy when we get home?"

"He ain't gonna care when _you're_ the one who stole the boat."

The wood of the boat ground and creaked as he quick-stumbled back to his feet, grabbed the rowing stick two-handed, reeled back with it. She seized, pulled back a little bit. Looked up at him with great big glassy eyes.

She didn't flinch nearly as much as she coulda. She kinda meant that, kinda just let it happen. It was trust, partly. Partly knowing he wasn't gonna do a thing.

Was clear he was thinking about it, at least. He gawped back on down at her all heated. Breathing so hard his shoulders moved up and down, hands all in fists around the stick.

And eventually, eventually, he started to make a face like he'd twisted his arm funny. Full-throated "huoohhhhhh..."-ed a sigh, and collapsed on the boat again so hard it splashed and rocked. She shuddered, caught herself at the sides for balance.

And he, takin' a little win back, apparently, giggled for a moment. Looked back out off the side, scooped his hand through the water to aim a little splash her way. Barely hit her, but she drew her hands up all the same. Limbs all pulled in close to her, looking at her with a hint of a sorrow. It followed, though, she guessed.

It was the best way to apologize to her brother, she'd gathered. He never believed it when she said "sorry". Pretended he didn't, at least.

And the stick _tunk_ed back against the tree. He slumped forward again. Took one long breath in, then out. Began rising up a smile.

Zoe's chest began to internally wring.

"You remember how the, uh, the _fi follet_? The thing Mama's story was about?" He set back to tracing that gnat line in the air. Rocking and tapping between the soles and heels of each shoe. "You remember how it's like a kind of vampire, right?"

His voice had gone all creaky like the boat.

She nodded. Let herself tentatively push a mental pin across to him, tilting her head. To see, if none too heavily, where he was going with this.

He shuffled a couple times a little faster - scooting himself forward a tad. "Here's the kicker about Uncle's story.

"All those guts comin' out of the deer?" A tip of his head one way, and then the other. Jokingly quizzical. "There was _aaaaalllll_ that guts...

"And no blood."

He'd pinched his eyes narrow to grin like an imp. Hands up, fingers wiggling, missing nothing but an _oooooooooooh...!_

She went and put him at a standoff. Nothing but silent disapproval.

And this point, she didn't need him to hear her say that she knew he was just making it up. He'd said there was blood before - that Uncle had, in fact said that there was blood. Blood and guts.

He pushed back with just a tad enough pressure to balance things out all the way. One more tiny tense between the middle of his brow and the bridge of his nose. His lower eyelids pushin' up from below.

"Remember how it's _kids'_ blood they like the best?" he mock-hissed. "Huh?"

"You don't know they won't eat you first," she said, in a tiny mumble that she lowered into a balled-up hand. One little spark in her head behind eyes almost glazed.

Spark caught.

Lucas _"pffffkhh"_-ed. Laced his fingers, rocked side to side. "You wanna make bets?" he said. "Your allowance versus mine?"

She nodded hard, as if by a puppet's string. And he pulled a teeth-showin' grin long and hard into one side of his mouth.

Better playin' for now than not.


	3. I'ma Feed You to a Gator for Fifty Cents

She _ had _said she'd wanted to bet.

"Mnn, all right, come on," Lucas said. He shuffled up on the boat toward her, his hands on the tops of the legs of his shorts. He looked away just a sec, like he saw some bug on the edge of the boat - in spite of herself, Zoe took a look away after him, and smacked herself down the head for it, eyes shutting themselves for the wince and all, thinking she'd let him trick her again.

When she snapped her face back in line, her eyebrows had drawn together a little bit. Like she was in trouble.

Lucky, though, he was still squinting off at nothing. Focusing on nothing.

And shimmying on up to her all bowlegged, like a skinny stretched frog.

On her part, as it dawned on him that he was fishing into his pockets, an urge of a rise stretched up on her chest and pulled the string of a bow to get her frowning like one - a frog. Bending him a good big, broad curve to tell him that _ he cheated _.

_ He was planning to cheat _.

"You're cheatin' again," she said.

He made an _ mmh _ -noise. Kinda-sneezed - just blew air through flaring nostrils. "How am I _ cheatin' _ \- we ain't _ playin' _ nothing yet, idiot _ . _"

He'd started shutting his eyes like Mama did, when she had a headache, or a stomachache, or a backache (she would laugh a lot that she was gettin' old already).

Till they went wide. He looked up in the air. He grinned and whispered a _ yeah! _

Wiggled in his crouching a little. She saw his fist ball up in his pockets. He growled a little bit. Sneezed again.

"...You wanna bet, then _ show me it _," he said. Smile coming back. "Show me the money...!"

He withdrew that fist. Held it in the air at both of their head levels, fingers facing down.

And then he opened two of them. From between his thumb and pointer finger dangled a couple of bills - she couldn't read 'em in the dark. He bounced them like a fake mouse for a cat - a little jingle from coins hidden somewhere in his hand and everything.

She shook her head once and hard, and the damp in the air stuck her bangs across her forehead with a sharp kind of cold on her skin. "I didn't _ bring _money," she said. Hard. "You said we were gonna just go to Uncle's."

He gave her one of his hurt looks again. Eyes big, head downturned so he looked at her pale-and-bright-like-ice from under shadows.

Glanced at those dollars for a moment - then back at her, and repeat, and repeat and repeat. Almost like shaking his head.

"What if I wanted to play _ cards _or something?" he said, thick, through saliva. He squinted at her for a moment. Shook the bills a couple more times.

"Daddy said I can't play cards with you with money no more." She managed to avoid a frown - might have been some idle wander a' thought; remembered Lucas had once told her that's called a poker face. "You always win."

Lucas narrowed his eyes _ tight _. Head turning down lower.

He breathed a hot, hot, _ big _ol' hiss - nostrils flaring wide.

She knew what he was thinking.

"...And that's my money," she said. "You can't always get all of it all the time."

"Uhhh, yeah, I can, if it's 'cause I _ win _," he said. Muttered "'Ss fair," crumpling up the bills, slipping 'em back into his pocket. "...Fair and square."

"Wasn't sayin' it's _ my _idea," she said, soft, pattering thin. An odd little twisty ache turned slow and slight somewhere behind and under her heart. "I still wanna play with you."

She did. Even knowin' he liked to cheat, and even knowin' he was better at stuff like counting, and math, and figuring out ways you can break a rule without _ really breaking it _.

Felt like part of the real game was trying to _ learn _something. A little plus in there, too, of the idea of maybe being able to tell Daddy she beat Lucas at a game sometime. The smart one. The times she'd even come close in the past, Mama'd just laughed, asked Lucas if he was goin' easy - givin' him another chance to lie to her, like he'd lied 'bout not using money anymore.

Cheatin' all over the place some more.

"Yeah, so if you wanna play, then how come you said you wanna bet when you didn't bring nothing to bet with," he said. Dried-out. Hollow. Not said, at all, like question.

"I don't gotta give you the money right now," she said. "You don't get it unless you win."

Fixed him with a stare. Deliberately growing it.

He returned in kind - round-eyed.

She tilted her head.

_ That makes sense, right? _

A smile suddenly cut back into his face. He wiggled from shoe to shoe - shook a little with laughter. Nodded his head, jerky.

Like he read her mind.

She smiled, too, gently - tentatively. A shiny-gold little flitter of hope piquing up between her lungs.

He made a hissing noise between his teeth. _ Hyeeeehhhhhhh _ . Mumbled, and nodded twice more. " _ \- Mnnnnnmmmmm. _" Twice more. "Yeah, yeah - sure, I don't." From two nods to two shakes, balancing his weight back a tad on the tips of the fingers of one hand to the bottom of the boat. Other hand raised, fingers fanning a little. He leaned aside - to look fuller at her around it. "...So where's it you put your allowance?"

He smiled nice and big at that. Like a great big jack-o'-lantern.

She licked side-to-side behind sealed lips slowly. Holding still and quiet - that little flittering leaf of hope suspended itself between two wires, pulling slowly, slowly taut.

" - Y'know, so I can still get it when you get ate...!" He hissed another breath and tugged his smile higher in a little pulse. Like one a' funny-juice right after telling a silly story.

Zoe narrowed her eyes at him. Scowled.

...Then her eyes popped again for a second. The hope-leaf flapped in a gust of a nice clean draft.

"I'm not gonna tell you till a vampire's about to get me," she said - a clipped tartness and in-her-nose-ness to it she learned from him. Steady - decisive. Tucking her chin down into her chest. Shifting side-to-side to stand on up on her knees.

And then folded her arms. One, then the other. Set it with a lift and drop of her shoulders and a _ smile _. She didn't take her eyes off of him.

Playin' along without playing _ in _. Blocking his tricks.

She was getting smart.

She _ knew _he knew she knew she was blocking his tricks, too. He squinted at her hard. The bridge of his nose was rumpled.

Till he again half-drew in that smile that said he was gonna play back.

Zoe's eyes widened. She couldn't tell quite if she was _ playing _ bright or _ actually _ bright; her own smile _ twisted _higher in her cheeks a bit.

It dropped when he flinched.

Just in a split-second - his whole body shuddered. Eyes squeezed shut tight before flyin' open wide; bracing himself down toward the floor of the boat, head up, a hand above the back of his head.

With one of his hurt looks.

Her eyes… flicked aside, in a sudden cold, cold drift. Her heart beat such as to swish her blood; made her tremble, too, early. Looked up after him, finally. Half-expecting eyes in a tree.

A fat drop of water hit her dead between the eyes. She squeezed 'em shut - flinched and shuddered like Lucas had before flapping 'em wide open. Skimming through the tree branches again. Another hit 'er above the brow; she shivered again, blinked.

She weren't sure what it was for a second - it was warmer than the moisture in her hair. Practically liquid air. Another hit 'er on the shoulder - she brushed at it, part of her thinking bug.

The trees began to rustle - light as a wind as the pattering kept on coming.

In a slow, slow pour muttering over the floor of the boat, too.

'Nother layer of temperature - an _ icy _chill - poured down her spine. She scowled, looked over at Lucas.

He weren't smiling no more, either - face to the floor of the boat, scrunching like he was about to cry. "_ Gaaaaaaaaahd _ \- "

\- Smacked his fist onto the side of the boat. "_ \- _ ** _DARN _ ** _ IT! _"

He braced himself back down toward the ground again, another near-spooked look up at the sky. Tickin' it cocked one way, and then the other. Mouth dropped open. Slow-blinked, seethed out a voiced breath to himself. Reachin' back out for the rowing stick as he sat back down.

Cleared his throat. She caught his nose twitching a little hint, as a heave, pulled the boat coasting back into motion. Her heart bumped with something knock-knock-ing underneath them; she shivered again somewhere an inch under where the rain was hittin' as she turned.

Scanned out at the water and its constant shimmer, now, of black and scratches and static pops of pale starry blue.

"'Mmm movin' us out of the rain," Lucas half-called - a nasal, projected kinda-monotone. Another gritting sound on another stroke pulling them along harder. A little faster. He sighed, a little bit. "...When we got shade, or somethin', I could try to fix the motor, I don't know…

"Uhh - 'bout the cash, though…!"

Zoe's brow flicked knit, slightly - a blink and a toss of a look back out to him, half-over-the-shoulder. Still turned out to watch the swamp.

He was lookin' back at her much the same.

'Cept she was looking at the profile of a jack-o'-lantern again.

"...You promise?" An almost-woody keen ol' _ creak _to it.

'Nother flutter of something inside her. Her lips thinned, twitched a sec - "Promise," she said, lightly.

The thought felt somehow unfinished.

"Deal, then!" Lucas said. Hearty. _ Normal _. Tossing her a thumbs-up, bouncing it a couple times in the air. The boat slowing to the threshold of a stop. A kind of suspension.

'Fore with another grunt and a grimace and a full turn back out ahead of them, both his hands went back to the stick and he jabbed it into the mud and hauled 'em forward.

The current of air fluttered into and over the layer of rain on Zoe's skin and in her dress like chilly, chilly feathers as they headed on forward into a blackening point of the dark-and-blue.


	4. Thrown a Bone

"Reckon we're gonna see fireflies, at least?" Lucas asked, tartly, as they passed under the shadow of a tree.

Zoe hated the way that shadow looked on 'im.

Made his eyes look much too light, even as light as they were. Particularly with the way he gawked out on the swamp again, she made out ahead of her. One of those looks where his face was frozen - his eyes circular, his nostrils just-flared, 'n his mouth open a crack, like he was getting ready to be shocked but didn't know by what yet.

She let her eyes drop - tucked her knees in closer to herself and put her head down, too. Tryin'a keep her face outta the rain and the look of Lucas's eyes all but glowin' in the darkness from burning itself back into her brain.

"I hope so," she muttered, sincerely.

She liked fireflies. Knew they weren't afraid of no rain. She narrowed and chewed her lips, lightly, takin' the thought into more account - it's be nice, and it was plausible, and so she did, indeed, hope now; would be one little thing going _ nicer _than it had to thus far.

Didn't shock her one bit one Lucas made a half-popped little whuffing sound that funneled high in his head into the edge of a squeak.

But that didn't mean it didn't _ pinch and sting_.

Up her head snapped. Her eyes narrowed slitlike; the bridge of her nose just barely crinkled.

_ Stoppit. _

With just the cavalier, jaw-open grin she'd expected, he just about flailed his head into a loose nod. "Hee-yeah, 'cause the dark's freakin' you out!" Another bobbleheading nod. "You don't know fireflies aren't gonna help with that? It'd take a ton of 'em to give us any light!"

The screws of that smile tightened up in his cheeks for all of 'bout two seconds before it slipped - all at once sagging to the point of verging on a frown. He squinted, now - lowered his stance, looked down at the water, and loosened his grip on the stick.

Zoe's brow lifted. She tipped sideways, to "peek" around him.

Lucas now outright scowled. He nudged the stick into the ground beside the boat in little wiggling movements; Zoe swayed slightly as the boat began to swerve.

And jumped, just a tad bit, as wood _grrrrrrrooooaaaaned_ against the side.

No spiteful smirk from Lucas at the reaction on this one. His lips twisted and showed all his teeth, and he gave the stick another shove into the mud; the boat lurched and the wood groaned harder, a tension beginning to spike up in the backs of Zoe's shoulders as she thought, distantly, of the bellowing of a big alligator.

The sprinkling of raindrops over her face had abated somewhat, to a light dusting through her hair. She looked up; blackness criss-crossing blackness - the hint of the impression a' tree branches webbing over the sky.

When she looked back down, Lucas had begun laying the stick down, perpendicular to the width of the boat - a bar between 'em.

He looked happy again.

Stick set down (a very gentle _clunk_), he began dusting off his hands. _Swap, swap, swap, swap, swap._

"Parked us in some roots," he said, tone brightly-tinted. "Now we ain't gonna float off while we wait for the rain to go away."

"How you know it's gonna go away?"

She made some barely-conscious point to say that slowly, her voice coming out doll-like.

And it did not, in fact, surprise her when his nose scrunched hard and his pupils snapped harder onto her face.

He tossed his head; made a little sneezing noise and looked up through the rain.

After too many beats, his only response for 'er was a muttery, husky little "shut up".

In her chest, she felt an anchor drop. Land nice and soft in sand. "What if it don't stop rainin' for days and days?"

"I'll catch us _ fish_, and stuff like that - Uncle ** _taught _ ** me how to do it; 's gonna be _ fine…!_" Zoe saw his face beginning to twitch as another anchor dropped - faster, harder.

"You can die from gettin' cold, right?" Head-cock. "We didn't bring stuff for the rain…"

"Oh, my god, _shut - **up - !**_"

Lucas scrambled forward and out of sheer reflex, Zoe flinched - scooching herself back against her end of the boat, hands up and tucked up tight to her chest -

Lucas was right on front of her, on his knees. He'd picked up the stick.

Holding it up in the air like he was about to take a swing with a baseball bat.

His eyes, again, shone in the shadows.

She still didn't like it.

'N yet that good old shocked flash of adrenaline was already fading. Quieting. Her muscles started to relax.

And she held her eyes on him, neutrally wide. Unblinking.

_ ...I ain't scared, you know. _

Lucas's shoulders rose and fell with one big, ragged breath. Another. So far, he wasn't makin' a move otherwise.

_ I know you ain't gonna do anything. _

Lucas's lip wobbled.

She stared on. Entire silence.

_ ...That ain't working. _

Lucas grimaced - the kinda face either of them made while getting a shot in town.

And a little stabbing pang of urgency on a heartbeat kicked her into adding an extra strike. Hammerin' of the point home.

"You're gonna get in trouble if you hit me," she said. Soft and markedly fast-pattering; she hadn't intended the latter part. "If you hit me, I bet even Uncle's gonna hate you."

...It had slowed down during that last part. _ Gonna - hate - you_; middle word… snagging.

It dawned on her as she consciously registered the whole fact that she had just said it right after - her eyebrows started to tense together; I think I messed up. I saw I was gonna mess up while I was doin' it, and now I'm finished and I got caught…

...And all the while, Lucas's posture absolutely wilted. Was like watchin' someone pour water on a cat.

In one big collapsing flow, down came the shoulders and down came the stick (_clunk_) and down came his head, hangin' loose on his neck.

The face he had on, in the further shadows of his under-angle, weren't anything that was sad, as far as Zoe understood it.

But it was what she had approximated as the closest thing Lucas had to such a face.

A stinging-eyed, everything-narrowed, burning-cheeked _ I hate you _.

Her chest ached, all right. Somehow, that repeated thought of I made a mistake had caused her ears to begun faintly, faintly ringing.

Yet seeing that old lack of sorrow, somehow, was some kinda dull, dull relief.

Not_ that_ big a mistake.

Lucas recovered from these kinds a' things easy, as far as she could tell.

Slowly, slowly, softly like setting down a baby, she laid one last anchor down, down, down into the sand. Let the cable go gently slack.

And she stood up slightly. Crossed her arms, bent the corners of her mouth down at Lucas.

She had _ won_, again.

And Lucas conceded. Harshening the narrow of his eyes on her before turning his face away - spitting into the water with a vocalized "_ptuh_" and grumbling in the back of his nose.

"...I said _ shut up_," he said. Quiet. Weakly, the slightest trace of a heady, frosted-glassy overtone to it. "All you do is complain."

She held her tongue now; no need to take any more jabs.

"One, Uncle likes me _ best…_" An ambiguous statement, she half-recognized before simply leaving it un-parsed. "...and _ B..._" Zoe, likewise, all but processed the inconsistency. "...all you're doin' is talking about how stuff can go bad when I been the only one doin' any work all night and _ I'm _ sayin', it's gonna be _ fine…_"

At lasty-last, he turned his face to her again. Just to pin her with one more accusatory _ glower_.

And that _ glower_, bit by bit, began to bloom back open.

Saucer-like.

Zoe's brow arced.

There was that… uneasiness, pricklin' at the backs of her shoulders again.

'Cept this time, it was cold.

"What?"

"_Whaaaaaat?_" Lucas whinily mock-parroted, head wobbling and mouth all at once drawing into one heck of a big half-moon grin. One quick harsh wheezy laugh before he tossed a strange sideways nod not quite Zoe's way. "_Looklooklooklooklooklooklook! _ You think we _ do _got fireflies?!"

A snare set itself in Zoe's brain. Something tightening and hangin' on tentative even as she did whip around, browline uneven.

\- And then it drained itself into a momentary vacuum of no cold, no heat, not even the sound o' the rain patching through as between two more trees - not more, judging by the size of things, than a few people-lengths away - she saw a spark of pale green light up out of one shadow, drift in a curve over a second, and disappear behind a third.

Another, before two crossed paths, and were joined by a third.


End file.
